Natural Rodent Repellents for Indoors

Natural Methods for Repelling and Trapping Rats and Mice

No one likes to find mouse or rat droppings in their home. If you’re looking for natural rodent repellents, alternatives to the toxic sprays and poisons on the conventional pest control market, then you’ll appreciate these tips and tricks for making your home naturally rat and mice free.

How to stop attracting rodents

The least time-intensive method of making your home mouse- and rat-free is to make it unattractive to rodents in the first place. Keep these rodent repellent principles in mind and you should be much less likely to experience a vermin infestation:

Hide food: Keep food of all kind well-sealed and out of reach to mice. By that, I mean don’t leave food on the counter overnight, put fruit in the fridge, store things like flour, sugar, and dry rice in lidded plastic or metal containers with good seals, and so on. This counts for pet food as well.

Hide nesting materials: This includes things like newspaper, fabric, rugs, blankets, and linens. Store these in sealable bins with tight-fitting lids.

Take the trash out: We recommend composting your organic waste, but food waste improperly stored (whether in the trash can or the compost collector) will attract rodents. Be sure to keep food waste in a tightly-sealed container or in the fridge, and remove it from the house quickly. It may also help to situate your outdoor compost bin away from the house.

Seal up holes: Mice can fit through amazingly small holes (some the size of pencil erasers), so you’ll want to walk the perimeter of your home (indoors and out) to spot possible entry points. Sealing these holes with impenetrable material (not newspaper, which they’ll just consume) will go a long way to keeping rodents out of your home.

Remove abandoned wood piles: These are perfect locations for mice and rat nests. If you’re not doing anything with the wood pile, consider giving it away to someone who will. If you have active wood piles, look into situating them away from your home.

Natural homemade rat and mouse repellents

Since it can be very difficult to account for every entrance point into your home, it may be necessary for you to develop your own natural mouse and rat repellents that keep them from coming in. There are certain scents and flavors that most rodents despise. Make use of these to repel these rodents naturally:

Cayenne pepper

Peppermint

Cloves

Citronella

Cinnamon

Ammonia

If you have oils of cayenne, citronella, cinnamon, peppermint, or cloves, or are dealing with ammonia, soak cotton balls or old socks (great way to recycle socks!) with the liquid and leave them in high mouse-traffic areas. Alternatively, run a diffuser with these oils for 20 minutes or so before you go to bed. You can also use dry forms of many of these ingredients to make your own sachets to distribute throughout your home.

Some enterprising business people have devised several natural rodent repellent products that have proven successful for many homeowners. Using natural ingredients like those recommended above, these are slightly more convenient than making your own, though obviously more expensive:

Step 3: Commercial and humane traps

If repelling the rodents naturally in your home appears to be ineffective, sometimes the only way to get control is to employ traps. But rather than use cruel and inhumane options that use glue, poison, or result in a slow, painful death, try something more humane such as these commercially-available humane mouse and rat traps:

You may have considered plug-in devices claiming to repel rats and mice, but unfortunately, in tests, these ultrasonic and electromagnetic devices have not proven consistently successful. Most research has shown that they’re either entirely unsuccessful, or only effective temporarily (a few days).